Quote Originally Posted by Watchman
I suspect a straight match-up of Spartiatoi vs. about any of the high-end falcata-waving assault infantry - Iberians, Samnites, Extraordinarii - would seriously cast doubts on that assessement...

The Classical Hoplites don't really strike me as too different from Thureophoroi though. The difference in armour level and attack skill is minimal and the Thureos have precursors to boot, so frankly all the Hoplitai could really have going for them is maybe a better morale and formation-density and mass-related issues. On the other hand, the Thureophoroi are good and affordable jack-of-all-trades workhorse infantry so the above can't really be viewed as much of a demerit for the Hoplitai either...
Hoplitai have +1 morale compared to thureophoroi and more importantly, good stamina.

Since I'm using BI.exe I also gave the hoplitai shield_wall, wich is a bit of a double edged sword because you'll need to have quite a lot of them to make a long line. When you do however, they're very much worthwile.